Right as Rain

by George Pelecanos

  “You’re gonna see somethin’ now,” said Quinn.

  “Yeah,” said Strange. “Sharmba’s gonna fuck him up.”

  Mitchell decisioned Saiz unanimously. Janine and Juana walked up the stands carrying two beers each. An elderly couple on the end got up to let them pass.

  “Damn, where y’all been?” said Strange, as they took their seats. He sounded mildly cross, but it was plain from the relieved look on his face that he had been worried about Janine.

  “Juana wanted to see Sugar Ray,” said Janine. “He’s down at ringside.”

  “You see him?”

  “Mm—huh,” said Juana, and she and Janine laughed.

  “Saw Don King, too,” said Janine.

  “Must have made you hungry for some cotton candy,” said Strange.

  “Wondered why my stomach was growling,” said Janine, “looking at that hair of his.”

  “How you doin’?” said Quinn, touching Juana’s hand.

  “Janine’s really nice,” she whispered.

  “Havin’ fun?”

  “Uh—huh.”

  He kissed her lips.

  A tuxedoed man came into the ring, pulled down the hanging microphone, and began to describe, with flourish, the participants in the main event.

  “Who’s that guy?” said Quinn.

  “Discombobulating Jones,” said Strange with affection. “Best ring announcer in D.C.”

  “Here we go,” said Quinn. “Bernard Hopkins.”

  “Hopkins took out Simon Brown,” said Strange. “You know that?”

  The main event had Hopkins in a rematch with Robert Allen for the IBF middleweight crown. Their first pairing, in Vegas, had been marred by Allen’s shoves and holds, and ended as a no contest when Hopkins fell through the ropes and sprained an ankle.

  “Allen’s doin’ it again,” said Strange, well into the first round. “He’s headlockin’ him, man; he doesn’t want to fight.”

  Allen seemed to fake an injury, claiming himself the victim of a low blow. The spectators became angry, calling Allen a punk and a bitch. As they grew more boisterous, they moved en masse toward the ring. The fight continued, with round after round the same. The crowd’s taunts became louder and more threatening.

  “These people want blood,” said Strange.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Quinn. “This fight stinks anyway, and you know Hopkins is gonna win.”

  The four of them moved through the dense crowd. The young women in the crowd were mostly attractive, with shoulder—length, relaxed hairstyles that Juana called Brandy cuts. The oversized look was out for the young men. Many wore baseball jackets with leather sleeves and colorful sayings embroidered on the back. Someone bumped Quinn and he kept on, not knowing and trying not to care if it was intentional or not. But he felt his face flush as he walked away.

  Out in the auditorium, as they walked down the carpeted lobby, a young man in a group of three made a comment directed at Juana, saying how he’d like to “kick that shit deep.” Quinn felt his face grow hot and the tug of Juana’s hand on his leather. He kept walking, and the movement calmed him.

  Once outside, they walked down 10th. Strange and Quinn followed Janine and Juana, who were stepping quickly, talking to one another up ahead. A young black man was standing on the median, yelling at passing cars. “I hate cracker motherfuckers!” he screamed. “I swear to God, I’m gonna kill the next white motherfucker I see!”

  “Sounds like the man’s got some kind of hang—up,” said Strange, a playful light in his eyes. “Doesn’t he know, Terry, that the world is changing?”

  “Think I ought to go tell him?” said Quinn.

  “Go ahead,” said Strange, with a small grin. “I’ll make sure your lady gets home safe.”

  JUANA and Quinn followed Strange and Janine over to Stan’s, where they had a round, and then another, before last call. By now they were all a little bit drunk, and Juana and Janine didn’t seem to want the evening to end, so they agreed to meet up at Strange’s row house for “one more.”

  Strange bought a twelve—pack at a market and drove up Georgia. Janine sat beside him on the bench, her thigh touching his, while Strange messed with the stereo, popping in War Live and fast—forwarding the tape to a song he liked.

  “What you lookin’ for?” asked Janine.

  “'Get Down.’ Here it is.” Strange turned the bass dial and put more bottom into the mix. “What’s Ron doin’ on Monday, you know?”

  “He’s workin’ a couple of jumpers, I think.”

  “I could use his help.”

  “We need the money he’s gonna bring into the business, Derek. Don’t tell me this Wilson thing is going to result in a big payday, ’cause I know you’re not gonna end up charging his mother enough. Let Ron do his thing and go on and do yours.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Strange turned up the volume and sang, “The po—lice … We’re talkin’ ’bout the po—lice.’ ”

  Janine laughed. “You’re in rare form tonight, honey.”

  “Havin’ a good time, I guess.”

  “Me, too. I like Juana. That’s a together young lady right there. Going to law school down at GW, you know that? Might have her talk to Lionel about it, let him know in a backdoor kind of way that anybody can do anything, they set their mind to it. You know she didn’t come from any kind of privilege or nothin’ like that.”

  “What about Terry? You think he’s good for her?”

  “They stay together, they’re gonna have problems they don’t even know about yet. Not to mention, all you’ve got to do is look in his eyes and see, that’s an intense young man. He’s got a lot of things to work out his own self before he can take on the responsibilities of a real relationship. But I do like him.”

  Strange nodded, looking in the rearview mirror at the black VW following his car. “So do I.”

  In the Bug, Quinn shifted the stick while Juana worked the clutch and steered with her left hand. Her right hand was going through a box of tapes that sat in her lap.

  “How about Lucinda Williams?” said Juana.

  “The chick on Laverne and Shirley?”

  “You’re thinkin’ of Cindy Williams.”

  “I’m fuckin’ with you, girl.”

  “Here, put this in, you’ll like it.”

  Quinn slipped the tape into the deck. “Metal Firecracker” came through the system, filling the interior of the car.

  “This rocks,” said Quinn.

  “Yeah, Lucinda is bad.”

  Quinn chuckled, looking through the windshield. “Derek’s got that Caddy all waxed up. I bet he really loves that car.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothin’. I’m sayin’ he’s proud of it, is all. His age group, the symbol of success is a Cadillac. You know what I mean.”

  “I guess I do.”

  When Juana was a kid, she heard a white boy in her elementary school class call a Cadillac a 'nigger boat.’ She had told herself from the start that Terry wasn’t 'like that’ in any kind of way. But how could you know what was really in a person’s heart? He had downed more than a few beers tonight, and maybe this was him for real, loose and talking truly for the first time. Maybe what he believed was out of his control, that everything he had learned had been taught to him, and had been ingrained in him irreversibly, long ago. And maybe she was just being too sensitive. Once you started going in that direction, you could drive yourself crazy over something that was probably nothing at all.

  “What’s wrong?” said Quinn, looking at her face.

  “Nothing, Tuh—ree,” said Juana, finding his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “I was just thinking of you, that’s all.”

  Chapter 21

  STRANGE was doing something he called the chicken leg, Janine dancing beside him, as “Night Train” blared through his living room stereo. Quinn was nearby, shouting out encouragement between hits from a can of beer. Juana sat on the couch, twisting up a number from some herb a
nd papers she had found in her purse. Greco lay on the floor with his head between his paws, his tail slowly thumping the carpet.

  “Sonny Liston used to train to that one,” said Strange, as the song ended.

  “Like you were doin’ right there?” asked Quinn.

  “Naw, man, that was a dance we used to do. Check this out.” Strange held up a CD with a photograph of a sixties—looking white girl on its cover. “Mr. Otis Redding. Otis Blue.”

  “You already played that Solomon Burke. What, are we working our way up to modern times here?”

  “This is the man right here,” Strange said, as Steve Cropper’s bluesy guitar kicked it off on “Ole Man Trouble,” the horns and then Otis’s vocal coming behind it.

  “Got any Motown?”

  “Shoot, Terry, Motown ain’t nothin’ but soul music for white people, man.”

  “How do I know? I wasn’t even alive when this shit was playin’ on the radio.”

  “And I was still gettin’ press—and—curls,” added Janine. “Barely a child.”

  “I was there,” said Strange. “And it was right.”

  Juana walked over with a joint in her hand. “You guys want some of this?”

  “I do,” said Quinn.

  “Been a while for me,” said Strange.

  “Come on,” said Juana.

  “You all aren’t gonna start acting funny now, are you?” asked Janine.

  “What’s this 'you all’ stuff?” said Strange.

  The four of them stood in the middle of the living room floor and smoked the joint. Strange took Quinn’s shotgun, but Juana refused it. Janine just waved her hand and laughed. By the time the joint was a roach, they were all alternately giggling and arguing over the next piece of music to be played.

  Strange put Motor Booty Affair on the CD player and turned up the volume. “The power of Parliament. Now we’re gonna roll with it, y’all.”

  The four of them danced, tentatively at first, to the complex, dense songs. The bass line was snaky and insistent, and the melodies bubbled up in the mix, and as the rhythms insinuated themselves into their bodies they let go and found the groove. They had broken a sweat by the fifth cut.

  Strange dimmed the lights and put on Al Green’s The Belle Album.

  “Reminds me of those blue—light parties we used to have,” said Strange.

  “That was before my time, too,” said Janine, kissing him on the mouth.

  They slow—dragged to the title tune. Janine had her cheek resting on Strange’s chest, moving in her stocking feet. Quinn and Juana made out like high schoolers as they danced. As the cut ended, Janine checked her watch and told Strange that it was time to go.

  “Lionel ought to be getting back to my house by now,” she said. “I want to be there for him when he arrives.”

  “Yeah, we need to clear out of here,” said Strange.

  “Where’s the head?” asked Quinn.

  “Up the stairs,” said Strange.

  Quinn went up to the second floor. He saw the bathroom, an open door that led to a bedroom and sleeper porch, and two more bedrooms, one of which had been set up as an office. Quinn looked over his shoulder at the empty flight of stairs and walked into the office.

  The office appeared to be well used. Strange’s desk was a coun—tertop set on two columns of file cabinets. Atop the desk was a monitor, speakers, a keyboard, and a mouse pad, and scattered papers and general clutter. Quinn went around the desk.

  Beside the desk, Strange had mounted a wooden CD rack to the wall. In the rack were western movie sound tracks: the Leone Dollars Trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, Return of the Magnificent Seven, My Name Is Nobody, Navajo Joe, The War Wagon, Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Professionals, Dual at Diablo, The Big Country, The Big Gundown, and others. There was no evidence in this room of the funk and soul music from the sixties and seventies that Strange loved so much. Quinn wondered if Strange was hiding this collection here, if he was embarrassed to have his taste for western sound tracks on display for his friends.

  Quinn looked at the papers on the desk. Stock—related documents, mostly, along with report forms with the Strange Investigations logo printed across the top. A heap of matchbooks and a faded photograph of a pretty young woman. He picked the photograph up, recognizing the image as that of Chris Wilson’s striking sister. Quinn remembered her from the newspaper stories and television reports that had been broadcast the day of the funeral.

  “You see a toilet in here?” said Strange from the doorway.

  Quinn looked up. “Sorry, man. I’m naturally nosy, I guess.”

  Strange’s eyes were pink and lazy. He folded his arms and leaned on the door frame.

  “Why have a photo of Wilson’s sister?” said Quinn.

  “For the simple reason that I’m beginning to think Sondra Wilson’s the key to this whole thing.”

  “You talk to her?”

  Strange shook his head. “Gonna have to find her first. Her own mother doesn’t know where she is. Sondra’s a junkie, man, got a deep heroin jones. Been away from the house a long while now. Wilson was looking to hook up with her, maybe bring her back home, is what I think. And another thing I think is, on the night he was killed, Chris got a phone call had something to do with Sondra.”

  Quinn dropped the photograph to the desktop. “You think Ricky Kane had something to do with that?”

  “I like your instincts, Terry.”

  “Well, do you?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “You need to talk to Kane.”

  “If he’s involved, it won’t do any good to talk to him. It would shut him up for real, and I got no kind of leverage. It might even hurt my chances of finding Sondra.”

  “That’s what you’re looking to do now?”

  “Yeah,” said Strange. “Finish what Chris Wilson started. Bring her home.”

  “Because you know you got nothing else for Leona Wilson, right? You know there was nothing deeper than what got put on the record about my involvement in the death of her son.”

  “You tellin’ me?”

  “I’m asking you, Derek.”

  “Look here, man.” Strange rubbed his cheeks and exhaled slowly. “God damn, I am fucked up. Haven’t smoked herb in years, you want the truth. Don’t know why I did tonight. But I got to blame it on something, I guess.”

  “Blame what?”

  “The crazy thing I’m gettin’ ready to ask you to do. See, my associate, Ron, he’s gonna be busy next week. And I could use your help.”

  “Name it.”

  “A tail and surveillance on Ricky Kane, for starters. I was thinkin’ Monday morning.”

  “Tell me what time.”

  “You don’t even have a car.”

  “I plan to go out this weekend and buy one.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Gettin’ tired of Juana chauffeuring me around.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll call you Sunday evening, let you know where we can meet.”

  “Derek?”

  “What?”

  “This mean I’m off the hook?”

  “Aw, shit,” said Strange, chuckling from deep in his gut. “You’re somethin’, man.”

  “I’m serious, Derek.”

  “Okay.” Strange unfolded his arms. “That hook you’re talkin’ about, you put yourself on it. You got to admit to yourself the reality of the situation. You got to free your own self, man.”

  “You just said —”

  “I said that I suspect there was something with Chris Wilson and his sister. That her lifestyle is what drove him to D Street that night. But you yourself admitted that Wilson was tryin’ to tell you and your partner that he was a cop. He was screaming his badge number out to you, man, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Look —”

  “You wouldn’t listen. You saw a black man with a gun and you saw a criminal, and you made up your mind. Yeah, there was noise and confusion and lights, I know ab
out all that. But would you have listened to him if he had been white? Would you have pulled that trigger if Wilson had been white? I don’t think so, Terry. Cut through all the extra bullshit, and you’re gonna have to just go ahead and admit it, man: You killed a man because he was black.”

  Quinn stared into Strange’s eyes. Quinn wanted to say more in his defense, but the words wouldn’t come. He was certain that any words he could choose would be insufficient. How could a white man ever tell a black man that he wasn’t that way without sounding self—serving or duplicitous?

  They heard Janine’s voice, calling them from the bottom of the stairs. Strange lowered his gaze to the floor.

  “C’mon, Terry,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “We better go.”

  QUINN and Juana drove east to her row house on 10th. They went straight to her bedroom, where he stripped naked and undressed Juana from behind. He ran both hands up her inner thighs and slipped two fingers inside her. She arched her back and moaned as he pinched her swollen nipples. Then, very quickly, they were fucking on the bed, Juana on the edge of it with her calves resting on his shoulders, and Quinn thrusting with his feet still on the floor. It was fast and nearly violent; Juana came with a groaning howl. Quinn was right behind her, veins standing out on his forehead and neck. The bed had slid across the room, stopping when it hit the wall.

  Quinn pulled out and slid Juana up to the center of the bed, putting a pillow under her head. They got beneath the blankets, holding a tight embrace, and what was left from them wet each other and the sheets. She stared up at him, not saying a word, her eyes saying everything. Soon she was breathing evenly. Her eyes fluttered, then closed completely, and she fell asleep.

  LIONEL Baker came home at one forty—five in the morning, nearly two hours past his curfew. Janine had been waiting in the living room, parting the curtains of the front window every few minutes to check for her son, as Strange sat patiently beside her. A Lexus finally pulled up on Quintana in front of her house, and when she saw her son emerge from the car, Janine said, “Thank the Lord.”

  Strange knew Lionel had been smoking herb, or doing something other than just drinking, as soon as he walked through the front door. Lionel’s pupils were dilated, his movements awkward and slow. He didn’t look his mother in the eye as he greeted them with a “Hey” and tried to get past them and up the stairs without another word.